Day-to-day management in a polycrisis

Photo by Suzy Hazelwood.

Our family uses a single, shared email address for the non-work stuff. After-school programs. Google classroom updates. Reminders to register for swim lessons. The teenager's cell phone bill. Our cell phone bills. It all gets sent to a single email and whoever touches it first, has the job of processing it. We call it Open Source Rules and it basically boils down to: you itch, you scratch.

Last week, that email account received a dozen messages, each with a half-dozen links, all under the banner of Resources. The subject lines ranged from "Important Update" to "Community Security Update" to "Resources for Students Re: Middle East" followed by "Additional Resources for Students and Families" and then "School Safety" and finally "Important Update on Community Security."

We are awash in links to resources. And given a choice between resources and silence, we understand the instinct to send out something that might be helpful. That could be helpful. At a time when so many people feel so hopeless and helpless.

We remember the last time our emails overflowed with resources. And the time before that. There's a cynical read if you're looking for it. A collective cringe any time more than five emails arrive on the same topic. The world is on fire, the polycrisis era is upon us, and here are several pieces of content marketing about mental health we hope you enjoy.

There's a less cynical read, too, of course. The reasoning goes like this. Something is better than nothing. And when you don't know who might be receiving the message and what they are likely to need, it's best to cast a broad net. This generic approach makes sense for cities, school districts, and multinational corporations. It's not possible to offer specific help to very large groups, but you do what you can. And trust that smaller groups will have a more complete picture of what their people need.

Bosses, this is where you come in. If you've already forwarded along your HR team's email about Resource Guides on Conflict in The Middle East, that's fine. But if you're wondering if there are other ways to support your team, we have some specific thoughts.

A more complete picture of what your people need

The people on your team — however hurt or terrified or angry or hopeless they feel — are probably showing up to work. Some of them might find it helpful to have a thing to distract them. Some of them might be dreading every interaction, and quietly crying with their cameras off on a zoom call. You may think you know who on your team is more affected by what's going on, but it's better to assume that you don't. Assume that everyone is. And the last thing they need from you, most likely, is another email full of resources.

First things first. When an awful thing happens, it hurts even more to feel like no one will acknowledge it. That doesn't mean that your people want to talk about it at work, many won't. But it's isolating to have no one say anything. So acknowledge it. We know that a lot of bosses feel ill-equipped to comment on the politics of the Middle East in general, and of Israel and Palestine in particular. We're not saying you should solve it. It will be deeply unhelpful and upsetting for you, as their boss, to offer your off-the-cuff read on the best solution to the conflict. Don't do that. But silence is not a neutral position here and there are things you can say.

You can say that the last few weeks have been devastating. Because they have. You can say that it's hard to read the news or look at a phone right now because so much commentary is trying to turn death and human suffering into a team sport, collapsing generations of trauma and oppression into one battle of good guys vs bad guys. You can say you don't know what to say about it, but that you understand that it will touch everyone differently and that it will hit some of us very deeply. You shouldn't say those things if you don't believe them. But, if you do, those are things you can say.

The second thing you can do as a boss is to accommodate. You have a lot of control over how work feels for the people on your team. A good start is to ask, "What would be helpful?" But many people don't know. The asking is important, but you'll get to a better spot if you can put some thought into it ahead of time. Imagine that you have people on your team struggling to keep it together. Imagine they don't want to let their team down, but they are whole humans and they can't pretend they are at full capacity right now. What are three specific things you could do to help someone who might need it, but not know to ask for it?

You can offer to push out timelines, deadlines, or quarterly goals. You can offer time off, re-prioritize work, change assignments. None of this is stuff you should do without their agreement — it's paternalistic and usually unwelcome to force these changes on people. But if they don't have a lot of creative energy right now, concrete options are often more meaningful than an empty agenda item. You can offer to take a walk. Or share a meal, even if you're remote from one another. You can offer to listen, but only if you mean it. You're not their mental health practitioner, nor their spiritual advisor, nor their poli sci prof — you are their boss. A boss who truly listens is a meaningful and important thing. A boss who forgets themselves in that moment is added hardship.

Finally, bosses, a reminder that your reach extends beyond your team. Do you have clients, prospects, or partners who are likely to be impacted? And has your team talked about how to handle those relationships right now? They need to. And you can provide the space and permission for them to do so.

Part of being a boss in the polycrisis era is that you'll have to get good at this. This won't be the last time we all get a wave of emails full of resources. It won't be the last time that external events have internal impacts. It's the reason to want to do the job well. Yours can be a team where people's humanity has space to coexist with, and even outrank, their productivity. It's worth building that. We're all going to need it.

- Melissa and Johnathan